What kind of optical fiber do I need to use with UbiSwitch?

BotBlox Hardware
1

– Copied from customer email –

Could you help me understand what kind of optical fiber cable I would need to interface with the BB-UBS-B-1. Is it simplex or duplex, single-mode or multi-mode, what kind of connector is supposed to be on the end of the optical fiber cable?

In our system, we have a control computer that needs to communicate to the BotBlox ethernet switch over optical fiber. Could you recommend a copper to optical fiber adapter on the computer side?

2

BB-UBS-B-1, when used with the BaseBoard (BB-UD1-B-1) puts the three 10G ethernet connections on SFP cages.

SFP cages are designed for SFP modules to be inserted into them. SFP modules are modular, and support many different types of optical and electrical connections. The specific type you need depends on your application.

In other words, I can’t really tell you what kind of optical or electrical SFP to use. It depends on your application. All I can say is that the SFP you do use with UbiSwitch needs to be 10G capable. 1G capable SFPs are different to 10G Capable SFPs. (This is not entirely true, UbiSwitch can be modified to work with 1G SFPs (see this forum post), but there’s not much reason to do that; you may as well use the full 10G capability while it’s there.

In terms of suggestions, please provide me with a bit more on the physical connection between the switch and the computer and I can suggest a solution. What’s the distance? Through what is the optical fiber being routed. Give me as much information and I can provide more useful guidance.

3

– Copied from customer email –

Thank you for getting back to me and for the information.

Does the UbiSwitch module care if the optical fiber cable is single mode or multimode? As long as it has the SFP connector either should work right?

The physical connection between the switch and the computer is going to be a standard RJ45 jack. The total distance of the optical fiber cable is 300’ and the distance between the adapter and the computer is less than 1ft. The optical fiber is going to be inside of a tether over-mold.

4

UbiSwitch does not know or care about the specific type of fiber you use. This is the same as with any switch that uses SFPs. All it can see is the type of SFP (1G or 10G) that is plugged in. Past that point, whether it is SMF or MMF, does not matter. As long as you use the SFP with the correct type of fiber, and both SFPs match on both sides it will work.

Note that most enterprise switches can switch between using 1G SFPs or 10G SFPs. On UbiSwitch, this is not yet possible programmatically (you have to solder a jumper, see forum post below). We will add programmatic ability to switch SFP type to BloxOSLite in the next release (probably).

For a 10G Copper SFP, we sell one that works with UbiSwitch. You can also purchase cheaper ones from fs.com, though they won’t have the same temperature testing that ours have.

https://botblox.io/10g-copper-sfp-module

For 10G optical SFPs, you would probably want to use a 10GBASE-SR (uses MMF) or a 10GBASE-LR (uses SMF). 10GBASE-R with MMF is cheaper and allows up to 300 meters (~984 feet), so that should work for your application.

FYI, below is a list of SFPs that have been tested to work with UbiSwitch. Obviously this list is not exhaustive, in theory UbiSwitch will work with any 10G capable SFP.